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[nenjin]

I've always had indoor/outdoor cats.

And I kinda came to the realization that when you do that, you're implicitly agreeing you're ok with your cat dying so they can be happy. Because once they've roamed and hunted, they'll never be happy again if they can't do it. I've lost a couple cats before their time in the course of my life. All sorts of things can happen to them, especially kennel-raised vs. uhm....nature-raised (not quite feral, not quite domesticated yet.) Hit by cars. Getting in fights. Getting maimed. Getting diseases. Getting cat-napped. Getting killed by neighbor dogs. Getting killed by neighbors. Getting killed by other wild animals. Getting picked up by Animal Control. Wandering off and never coming back, for whatever reason. I've even rescued one from the neighbor's possum trap ><

And yet, I'd never subject a cat to an indoor-only life unless they really wanted it. It's why I'm really careful about cat ownership now, when I choose to get one. I don't like moving cats. They hate it. I hate it. They have to re-acclimate to a totally new environment. Some do it gracefully, others do not.

My technique with a new cat is to put them in the bathroom with a litterbox and food for a day or two, let them think of that as home. Then open the door, let them wander the house. When they're calling that home, I move their litterbox and food to its permanent spot. The choice when to let them outside is just something you kinda make as a gut call. I usually let them wander supervised for a little while, letting them taste the outdoors and gauging how they act, then bring them back in. I do this a few times until they start getting insistent about going outside. The real test is when you let them out alone for the first time....and whether they show back up at the window/door or not.

Daytime is the best time to let your cats out. Nighttime is when they get into all sorts of trouble, but it's also the time they get to really be cats. It's a personality thing. Some cats love to hunt. Some cats are kinda ambivalent about it. My two cats now behave very differently despite growing up together for years. Both like to go out at night, but one likes to come in after only an hour or two, while the other will stay out aaallllll night. He's also the one that keeps getting into trouble and nearly dying.

It's funny when you consider how caged and controlled most owned dogs are.

[penguinofhonor]

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[Thief^]

look, it should be obvious that being indoors will lengthen your cat's life, it's not like it's a hard deduction to make.

How about:
An indoor cat gets much less exercise, which can seriously reduce lifespan (especially if they have a constant source of food)
A cat left indoors when the owner isn't home will get neurotic and unhappy
An indoor cat (especially a lone cat) will get bored trapped inside when their owner is not home, and this drives them to play with things that really aren't a good idea (e.g. hanging themselves in curtain cords)
Cats use grass as an aid to help them throw up when they're ill. If they're stuck inside with no access to grass, they can get into trouble (especially if they decide a houseplant is a substitute, which may be poisonous or even plastic)
A cat trapped indoors can only access what food they are given. If they run out, they're forced to choose between starving and eating things that really aren't good for them (many kinds of human food are poisonous to cats) an outdoor cat can get food elsewhere. Cats like to eat/snack very regularly, so being without food for only a couple of hours is enough to piss off a cat.
Ditto water.
Some cats like to hunt. A cat trapped inside can't hunt, which at best makes them unhappy and at worst makes them hunt live mains cables (which is dangerous at best)

Now you might say it's about "how much effort you put into your cat" but are you at home all day? If you work full time, you're likely only home and awake (and not busy cooking/cleaning/etc) for a couple of hours a day. Is that enough? Someone compared a cat to a child earlier (something like "would you let your toddler out on their own"): would you leave your toddler home alone while you were at work? As you can see, they are clearly different. Don't treat your cat like a toddler, treat them like a cat.
How about you try staying inside your house for 16 straight years. You'd go crazy.

Cats aren't stupid. For the most part they can look after themselves outside. They are, after all, animals.

That's not to say there are places where an indoor-only cat makes sense. For example in the US, where people shoot things for fun, it might not be safe to go outside at all.
(or more seriously, in cities or near major roads)

I may be biased from the fact that we've have always had indoor/outdoor cats, but that's normal practice in the UK. They tend to make themselves voluntarily indoor-only cats when they get old, and then they die of old age. They don't get shot, or hit by cars, or taken away by animal control (even if a cat of ours did get picked up, it would have its microchip scanned and returned to us immediately, though it's never happened). They don't get tortured (this is a criminal offence). They don't get given drinking water laced with LSD.

If I lived in your neighbourhood, damn right I'd keep my cat inside. But you can't just extrapolate that to the entire world.

[smeeprocket]

look, it should be obvious that being indoors will lengthen your cat's life, it's not like it's a hard deduction to make.

How about:
An indoor cat gets much less exercise, which can seriously reduce lifespan (especially if they have a constant source of food)
A cat left indoors when the owner isn't home will get neurotic and unhappy
An indoor cat (especially a lone cat) will get bored trapped inside when their owner is not home, and this drives them to play with things that really aren't a good idea (e.g. hanging themselves in curtain cords)
Cats use grass as an aid to help them throw up when they're ill. If they're stuck inside with no access to grass, they can get into trouble (especially if they decide a houseplant is a substitute, which may be poisonous or even plastic)
A cat trapped indoors can only access what food they are given. If they run out, they're forced to choose between starving and eating things that really aren't good for them (many kinds of human food are poisonous to cats) an outdoor cat can get food elsewhere. Cats like to eat/snack very regularly, so being without food for only a couple of hours is enough to piss off a cat.
Ditto water.
Some cats like to hunt. A cat trapped inside can't hunt, which at best makes them unhappy and at worst makes them hunt live mains cables (which is dangerous at best)

Now you might say it's about "how much effort you put into your cat" but are you at home all day? If you work full time, you're likely only home and awake (and not busy cooking/cleaning/etc) for a couple of hours a day. Is that enough? Someone compared a cat to a child earlier (something like "would you let your toddler out on their own"): would you leave your toddler home alone while you were at work? As you can see, they are clearly different. Don't treat your cat like a toddler, treat them like a cat.
How about you try staying inside your house for 16 straight years. You'd go crazy.

Cats aren't stupid. For the most part they can look after themselves outside. They are, after all, animals.

That's not to say there are places where an indoor-only cat makes sense. For example in the US, where people shoot things for fun, it might not be safe to go outside at all.
(or more seriously, in cities or near major roads)

I may be biased from the fact that we've have always had indoor/outdoor cats, but that's normal practice in the UK. They tend to make themselves voluntarily indoor-only cats when they get old, and then they die of old age. They don't get shot, or hit by cars, or taken away by animal control (even if a cat of ours did get picked up, it would have its microchip scanned and returned to us immediately, though it's never happened). They don't get tortured (this is a criminal offence). They don't get given drinking water laced with LSD.

If I lived in your neighbourhood, damn right I'd keep my cat inside. But you can't just extrapolate that to the entire world.

Some of those examples are pretty ridiculous tbh. How often do cats hang themselves on curtain cords? I've never even heard of that, whereas getting hit by a car is pretty common.

I'm actually home all day but I agree that many people work long hours. Like I said, it's a trade off, do you want your cat to live a long life (or have the highest potential of that) and can you spend the time with them.

I realize my last post was pretty hostile, and that wasn't my intent, I'm just getting flustered because I really don't think the dangers inside are nearly the same as outdoors. I'm not talking about the odd ones like torture or drug lacing (that was just a mention about how one of my cats has problems, not that that is really a risk,) but outdoor cats face a long list of very serious dangers that indoor cats do not face.

OP, I hesitated to say that you should get another cat, because that does help with indoor cats, but if you feel you can handle two cats, I advise it. Indoors, with a single cat, you are the center of their universe, but another cat will give them extra interactions and stimulation and give them a chance to do more catly things.

[Thief^]

The examples were intended to be as outlandish as yours (although still real, as your were). Aside from being hit by cars (and early "natural" death from lack of exercise/obesity, which while not as sudden as death-by-car is still a common problem with indoor cats), the odds of all of them (on both sides) are within error of 0%.

For a lot of people, having an indoor-only cat is just a long torture of isolation for the cat.

It really comes down to: Will someone be in all the time to entertain the cat, and if not, how dangerous is your neighbourhood? Are you in a flat in the middle of a city, surrounded by major roads, or are you in the suburbs or a village where cars are relatively rare? Do you live in the US where people shoot cats (or really anything) for fun? Is your cat sensible enough to avoid dangers, or does it think everyone/thing is its friend?
etc etc.

You can say that going outside is "more" dangerous than being kept indoors all the time - I'd agree with that - but that doesn't necessarily make it dangerous on an absolute scale. Everywhere I've lived, allowing cats out is safe enough that they are still most likely to die of old age, so there's no good reason to keep them inside-only.

From what I can see this seems to be a weird UK vs US difference. The various US animal websites are all scare-mongering about how you must keep your cat inside or it will die next week, where the UK advice is far more relaxed.

That said, this is all beside the point - the OP is in an apartment building, and so has no real choice: The cat will have to be indoor-only.

[smeeprocket]

The examples were intended to be as outlandish as yours (although still real, as your were). Aside from being hit by cars (and early "natural" death from lack of exercise/obesity, which while not as sudden as death-by-car is still a common problem with indoor cats), the odds of all of them (on both sides) are within error of 0%.

For a lot of people, having an indoor-only cat is just a long torture of isolation for the cat.

It really comes down to: Will someone be in all the time to entertain the cat, and if not, how dangerous is your neighbourhood? Are you in a flat in the middle of a city, surrounded by major roads, or are you in the suburbs or a village where cars are relatively rare? Do you live in the US where people shoot cats (or really anything) for fun? Is your cat sensible enough to avoid dangers, or does it think everyone/thing is its friend?
etc etc.

You can say that going outside is "more" dangerous than being kept indoors all the time - I'd agree with that - but that doesn't necessarily make it dangerous on an absolute scale. Everywhere I've lived, allowing cats out is safe enough that they are still most likely to die of old age, so there's no good reason to keep them inside-only.

From what I can see this seems to be a weird UK vs US difference. The various US animal websites are all scare-mongering about how you must keep your cat inside or it will die next week, where the UK advice is far more relaxed.

That said, this is all beside the point - the OP is in an apartment building, and so has no real choice: The cat will have to be indoor-only.

umm no the stuff I listed is fairly common. Being hit by a car, disappearing without a trace, being stolen, sleeping in the engine and getting burned up, hell black cats around halloween specifically run the risk of getting tortured.

Most of the time your cats just disappear.

It's not scare mongering, christ. I've had numerous outdoor cats and numerous indoor cats. I had an indoor cat that was obese that lived to 18 years old. I've had 1 outdoor cat lived to 20 and the rest didn't make it to 10. All my indoor cats have lived to at least 14. And I have lived in a variety of neighborhoods, many without heavy traffic. Hell, my parents hit one of the cats themselves. The car doesn't have to go very fast.

If you think the outdoors is safe for cats you are being intentionally obtuse. You can argue that mentally the outdoors might be better for some cats, but don't be ridiculous.

[Sappho]

Dude, seriously. I've had at least 15 outdoor cats. 14 of them lived to be 16 or older. I've helped care for 6 indoor-only cats. 1 died at age 3 of heart failure. 2 died at about age 12 of obesity-related problems. 1 died at age 7 of diabetes-related complications. 1 of them is still alive, aged 14, but terribly obese and extremely neurotic despite the owners' best attempts to keep her entertained. Only 1 of them is doing fine, and that's the cat I have now, and I have to devote every minute of my spare time to making sure he gets enough attention and exercise (and he's only 4). I have a terrible scar on my arm from someone else's cat who was kept indoors his whole life; he was so neurotic that he attacked me when I wasn't even close to him and ripped my arm open with his teeth. Meanwhile, every outdoor cat I've ever had has been friendly and cuddly towards everyone. Even the cat I have now will only tolerate me, because I'm with him all the time; when someone visits, he hides behind the toilet shaking and refuses to come out until the next day.

So... 93% of my outdoor cats lived past age 16, and all were very happy.
2/3 of my indoor cats have died young, 1/6 went insane, and only 1/6 is healthy and reasonably sane.

Indoors can be very safe. Indoors can also cause many problems.
Outdoors has dangers. Outdoors can also be perfectly safe and make happier cats.

Smeeprocket, you've made your opinion on this matter very clear. Everyone knows that you believe letting a cat outside is a horrific thing to do, and that anyone who recommends doing so is a monster. I get it. We all get it. I think the time has come to let this go. These posts are starting to turn into a flame war. Everyone has made their points. Everyone has different experiences. Different organizations have different recommendations (and for what it's worth, I lived most of my life in the US and no one ever suggested that cats should be kept indoors -- all the vets we had said outside is better for them). All the information is there now, and it's up to each cat owner to decide what's best. In any case, the OP has no choice but to keep the cat indoors, so this whole conversation is moot anyway.

Can this discussion please be dropped? I'm asking everyone. And I'm asking because I would like to have this thread available as a resource for the OP to ask whatever questions he might have about his new cat, instead of a flame war between people who disagree about whether letting a cat outside is a good idea or not. If the answer is no, then... enjoy your fight, and I'll be on my way. OP, if you have any other questions that I might be able to help with, don't hesitate to send me a PM.

[smeeprocket]

I don't even know how you have this obesity problem. That has never been an issue for me and really shouldn't be if you are feeding your cat the correct amounts.

Heck, I leave dry food out for my cats all the time and it's never an issue.

Just sounds like you are overfeeding your inside cats, that's a very specific problem that has a very specific cure.

It's not like I've had just 3 outdoor cats I am working off of, I've had a ton, more than I can count because my parents only had outdoor cats.

I've also had a number of indoor cats.

You are talking to someone who has had as many cats as you have. It's not like I'm not speaking from experience.

I had stopped discussing this before it was brought up again. SO let me get this straight, it's okay for people that want outdoor cats to keep nailing that home but I need to shut up about it?

Sounds like you dislike people disagreeing with you.

Not to mention, you made MORE arguments for your side, and then told me to be quiet. Why would you continue arguing unless you just want the last word.

For christ's sake.

[DJ]

IMO there's a lot more to life than it's length.

[Arx]

Guys, can we please get off the tangent? As Sappho said, this isn't relevant to Drakasin's question, and it is already basically a flamewar with the way things are being phrased.

Can we go back to advice on how to keep a cat that is indoor out of necessity happy and healthy?

I do apologise for coming and telling people they need to do things, but I'm sure there's plenty of cat-related info that Bay12 in general is interested in, and I don't want to see this thread locked.

[smeeprocket]

Guys, can we please get off the tangent? As Sappho said, this isn't relevant to Drakasin's question, and it is already basically a flamewar with the way things are being phrased.

Can we go back to advice on how to keep a cat that is indoor out of necessity happy and healthy?

I do apologise for coming and telling people they need to do things, but I'm sure there's plenty of cat-related info that Bay12 in general is interested in, and I don't want to see this thread locked.

If Sappho hadn't said it in a passive aggressive way to get the last word in, it wouldn't have been responded to.

While I admit I am terrible about picking battles, that was just baiting and acting like she was trying to keep the piece just makes things worse.

[nenjin]

Guys, can we please get off the tangent? As Sappho said, this isn't relevant to Drakasin's question, and it is already basically a flamewar with the way things are being phrased.

Can we go back to advice on how to keep a cat that is indoor out of necessity happy and healthy?

I do apologise for coming and telling people they need to do things, but I'm sure there's plenty of cat-related info that Bay12 in general is interested in, and I don't want to see this thread locked.

If Sappho hadn't said it in a passive aggressive way to get the last word in, it wouldn't have been responded to.

While I admit I am terrible about picking battles, that was just baiting and acting like she was trying to keep the piece just makes things worse.

You don't get how this works. When people ask you to drop it, it's not the time to point more fingers. So just drop it, please.

[Caz]

I've never heard of people having purely indoor cats here unless they live in a high-rise flat with no garden. Maybe it's cultural differences.

[Toady One]

Hi!  It's important for people to be respectful to avoid complete thread collapse, so please try to keep it together.

[penguinofhonor]

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